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Hello everyone and welcome to today's 'Fear the Newsletter', aka the 'we're just waiting on Kevin Durant' edition.
If you have questions, concerns or complaints, drop me an e-mail at christopherwmanning@gmail.com. We hope you enjoy.
- Chris Manning (@cwmwrites), Editor at Fear the Sword
So, it's July 4th and we are still waiting on Kevin Durant to make his decision. He's supposed to make it today via The Player's Tribune and it seems as if it's down to the Celtics, Warriors and Thunder. If you want to connect the strings yourself, you can check every Durant rumor here.
My prediction, for the little that it's worth, is that he's going to stay in OKC. Vox's Matt Yglesias nails why in this tweet:
If I were Kevin Durant I would stay in OKC. Young team, grateful fan base, low taxes.
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) July 4, 2016
In very minor Cavs news, assistant coach Bret Brielmaier has been hired by the Brooklyn Nets. In a Cavs deep cut, his connection to the Nets is largely via former Cleveland guard Trajan Langdon. Langdon now the Nets' Assistant GM under Sean Marks.
In other Cavs news that's a little more interesting, Tristan Thompson will in fact play for Team Canada in Olympic qualifying this week. With Canada's roster lacking scoring - both Andrew Wiggins, Kelly Olynyk and Jamal Murray aren't on the roster - Thompson might get a much bigger offense role than he has in Cleveland. Canada's fist game is on July 5 in Manila vs Turkey. The only issue is that it airs at 6:30 a.m.
Also on FtS, Alex Ralston argued that the Cavs shouldn't match Matthew Dellavedova's offser sheet. I think he's wrong, but it's a pretty reasonable take.
We finished up our player reviews yesterday and you can check them all out here. My favorites: William Bohl on Iman Shumpert, Justin Rowan on Kyrie Irving and Carter Rodriguez on J.R. Smith. You should read them all, though.
Lastly, a reminder that Richard Jefferson is having way more fun than the rest of us.
That's it for today's edition. Have a great holiday and we'll talk to you tomorrow.